The German did well to keep the charging Williams of Valtteri Bottas at bay on the final lap of the 54-lap race.

"At the end it got a bit tricky. If it was one lap longer, Valterri (Bottas) probably could have DRSed me," said Hulkenberg, who has moved a place down to be fourth in the drivers' standings ahead of reigning world champion Sebastian Vettel of Red Bull.

Hulkenberg addded: "It was a straightforward race, not much to do except manage my tyres, manage my pace and not make a mistake.

"It was not as strong as Bahrain. The strategy was optimal, which shows us we’ve got some homework to do. We’ve beaten all the other customer Mercedes cars, that’s our main competition."

Perez, who scored Force India's first podium in five years at Bahrain, said ninth was the maximum he could have got on the day.

"To start from P16 and finish in ninth place is a good recovery after a difficult qualifying. I made a good start and after that I just focussed on making the two-stop strategy work. I think everybody suffered with tyre graining and I picked up a few flat spots, but we still made it work," said the Mexican.

Force India collected 10 points at the Shanghai International Circuit but slipped a place to be third in the standings with 56 points behind Mercedes (154 points) and Red Bull (57) and ahead of Ferrari (52) and McLaren (43).